So there was an excellent question over on Stack Overflow, so I answered the question. Also several other people answered as well. The question had very good responses. So we all answered in attempt to get his bounty.

Well initially my question took the bounty but he didn't mark an answer. So I thought, I'll offer some of my rep to see if we can find this guy the proper answer. Well, my bounty got a lot more answers.

Well, I was out of town and I came back today. The Grace Period had ended. So I couldn't issue a bounty. That isn't a big deal- as it is supposed to go to the person with the highest marked answer.

This is where it gets really odd.

It gave me a box that said:

Your grace period has ended please enter your bounty as soon as possible.

So I was going to select a answer for the rewards; then all the selections vanished and I couldn't award my bounty. So I'm assuming it went to automatically assign the bounty. The problem is, my answer took the lead.

So because it was my bounty and I had already one bounty, and it went to assign it automatically to me my own bounty the reputation just vanished.

Essentially it is in this limbo state now, I don't have the reputation- no one can be awarded it just vanished.

2 Answers
2

Looking at the edit history no winning answer was found so the bounty was not awarded.

The question timeline shows that the only answers that got enough upvotes were already posted before you set the bounty on March 28th.

Only answers posted after the bounty and with at least 2 upvotes are eligable for automatic assignment, no such answers were posted. The answers by users user2077488 and user209737 were the only new answers and they didn't gain any votes.

Bounties are there to promote a question, and here it did that job admirably. The fact that the bounty can also be awarded to a specific answer is a nice extra for the answerer, but not a given.